“CSI” gets a fresh face in Jessica Lucas

To warn or not to warn, that is the question. Casting news, while potentially
spoiler worthy, isn’t necessarily considered warn worthy. However, for avidCSI fans, the appearance of a new female CSI might give off hints of
an unhappy end for a current female CSI. While at least one person
over at tvguide.com
claims to have the answers, I don’t.

So, I will warn you that what follows is only spoiler-worthy if you have not
seen the past two season enders for CSI. If you have, nothing I’m about
to tell you about plot points will come as a surprise.

If you watch CSI at all, then you are likely aware of Jorja Fox‘s reported contract difficulties. At the end of this past season, viewers were left with an image of her character, Sara Sidle, trapped under a wrecked sports car in the middle of nowhere. Signs of life were, shall we say, limited. For CSI fans, the debate has been raging since before the finale ever aired about whether or not Sara would survive the crash. Will the CSI cast photo look like this next season?

Well, I can’t tell you if any of these faces will disappear, but for at least four episodes, an additional face will appear. That face belongs to Canadian actress Jessica Lucas.

For those of you out there, like me, who don’t recognize Lucas, allow me to
fill you in. Her history includes Canadian teen drama Edgemont and
the films The Covenant and She’s the Man, which you’ll recall
from She
Made Me Watch This is a remake of Just One of the Guys.

Lucas also showed up as a bit player in the very beginning of The L Word
episode "Losing It" (where she made out with another woman).

The bigwigs at CBS are quick to point out that Lucas’ character is a new edition, not a replacement for Jorja Fox. The question is, do we believe them? I for one, have my doubts. Sara might very well survive that car crash, but does that mean she’ll stick around in Vegas? Who knows. I do know at least one thing for sure. The legions of femslash writers out there are likely to ignore Sara’s death (if it happens) just as they have ignored her on screen romance with Grissom.

And frankly, much as I enjoy Jorja Fox and the character of Sara Sidle, if
the character’s death would prevent me from having to see Sara and Gil making
doe eyes at each other and getting all snugly, then so be it. I have not been
able to properly watch an episode of CSI since Sara walked into Gil’s
bedroom in a bathrobe. The very last bedroom I wanted to see Sara walk into
in a bathrobe is one with Gil Grissom waiting on the bed. Perhaps my own fascination
with femslash has done something to my brain, but the idea of Grissom and Sara
romancing one another disturbs me. I honestly walked around the house after
the big reveal mumbling, "My eyes. Oh, my eyes."